IF YOU were to compare Paddy Ryder to a cricketer, the one who might spring to mind is former Australian batsman Mark Waugh.

Graceful, blessed with all the skills, a fluid craftsman who's great to watch when he's going, but at times a little frustrating because he exudes an air of nonchalance. There was a perceived a lack of urgency.

If only Waugh were his twin, Steve, people would lament. All scrappy grit and relentless intensity.

Earlier in his career such accusations would eat at him and erode his confidence. So much so that a couple of months into James Hird's first season at the helm, in 2011, the coach had to pull aside his former teammate for a chat away from the club.

"I went out to Hirdy's house and he just pointed out all of my strengths and wrote them down on a list," Ryder said.

"Stuff like, 'Right, you're one of the best goalkickers at the club, you're one of the best marks, one of the best athletes'.

"He just wanted to get me back to the basics, back to working hard and getting that confidence back up. He just wrote them down on a piece of paper and all of the stuff I was good at tripled the stuff I needed to improve on. And he just reminded me about all of those positives."

Ryder finished the season strongly as the Bombers made it as far as an elimination final. He is determined to stop listening to all those from outside Windy Hill who bombarded him with advice and criticism.

"When you're at a footy club, the stuff that happens at the club and the things that are spoken about outside a club are worlds apart," he said. "(Now) I judge my game on the feedback from my teammates and my coaches and nobody else.

"If there's stuff that I need to be doing out there, then I'll take that on board, what they tell me. I don't really care what anyone else thinks. When I was younger I was probably listening too much to opinions and advice from the outside."

Ryder seemed to have taken his game to another level in the first half of last season. Alternating between centre-half forward and the ruck, he averaged more than 15 disposals, six marks and 20 hit-outs as the Bombers won eight of their first nine matches. But a calf niggle, and later a hamstring tendon injury, prevented him from having much influence in the second half of the year.

At season's end he had shoulder surgery, had a break in his home state of Western Australia and a holiday in Bali, where he proposed to his partner Jessica. He returned to the club under-prepared for pre-season training.

"Footy's a day-to-day grind, and sometimes if you drop the ball and rest a bit - and I went into the break feeling like I needed a rest because it was such a long season - so when I came back I realised I hadn't done enough," Ryder conceded.

At Essendon's first time-trial run, around Princes Park in November, he finished last.

"Probably the first month of training when I came back I wasn't that fit, but I've just worked hard with the coaches and my teammates and I knew I'd get back to a decent fitness level," he said. "I had to take a conservative approach to training and make sure I got my training loads right."

Nevertheless, returning from the holidays out of condition is the sort of thing that gives ammunition to those who suggest Ryder doesn't care enough, or is not passionate about playing at AFL level.

"If I didn't have the passion to play footy I wouldn't be here," he said. "If I ever lost that passion, or found it wasn't fun to play any more, then I wouldn't be here. But I consider myself to be pretty passionate about footy and about this club and I love playing AFL."

His greatest challenge, as he sees it, is to be a man the team can rely on to influence games more regularly.

"The guys that are the best players have that consistency, and it's something that our whole team is working on. I don't want to just be an average player because I play well one week and the next week I go cold. It's something I've been pushed on over the pre-season and something I want to take into games this season."

Hird agrees. After Essendon's final pre-season hit-out - a 91-point win over the Giants in which Ryder was dominant - the coach said: "Last year Paddy set a standard and regressed occasionally. If he sets that standard he needs to keep that standard."

Ryder recognises that need, and is conscious of the fact that as a senior player in his eighth season he has to take on more responsibility.

"If there are any problems or issues that come up, then indigenous players can come to us and we can tackle them through the AFL Players' Association," Ryder said. "We keep in touch via email, and the Melbourne guys are planning to meet once a month."

The big man also wants to be part of the group that drags Essendon back to the pinnacle, and is acutely aware he has not played on the winning team in a final. He rejected overtures from the Perth clubs last year to sign a four-year contract extension that will keep him in the red sash until the end of 2016.

"There was always the option that I might go back home. But I've got good mates at this footy club, and there's still a lot we want to do together. We haven't experienced the highs, so I didn't want to leave without sharing that success with them. There's unfinished business."

After all, despite the perceptions of nonchalance, below the surface Mark Waugh was a flinty competitor who hated to lose.

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